A Tale of Two Esthers

Most people who spent any time in Sunday school growing up have heard a version of the book of Esther, though perhaps only in the form told to small children. It’s the type of story that lends itself to that group, a tale of a slave girl becoming queen and defeating the evil villain. It’s the blueprint for countless fairy tales, and yet all the more marvelous because it is true. As we grow older, we start to become aware of the deeper meanings, the wonders of God’s provision and saving power, but even then the fairy tale calls out to us undiminished.

As with many books of the Bible, it seems that there are near endless lessons that can be drawn. The scriptures speak to us differently at different times in our lives, perhaps even on different days of the week. We can be forgiven for overlooking many of them, yet it becomes a great treasure to us as God reveals new meanings in ancient words, as in the case of the two Esthers.

Both of these women had common beginnings. They were born captives in a land of oppression, orphaned and left in the care of an uncle. As one, they found themselves taken from what life and family they knew, thrust among strangers, and destined to be cruelly used. Yet even then, God intervened, taking the handmaidens and placing a crown on top of their heads.

It would be wrong of course to look upon their lives at this point. While queens in name, they had no authority to reign. Rather than facing the whims of a nation, they were subject to a single man, yet his power over them was absolute. Still, as captives in a hostile land, they were surely at the top of the heap. Without power, they yet had influence. Still servants in all but name, they had access to wealth, prestige. And having much, they had much they could lose, and it’s at this point that the difference between our two queens makes itself known. 

One of our queens, it seems, was a “go-along-to-get-along” type. While she had shown herself adept at handling some difficult situations in the past, she was still unsure of who she was in this foreign land. When the pronouncement was made that before long her people were to be killed like animals, their lives forfeit and property taken, she froze. While she had influence, attempting to use it would expose her to risk, perhaps even death. It was not a path she could seek out.

Our second queen, in much the same position, began down the same road, and then received the counsel of her uncle. It was both plea and a warning, with a grim message: Aside from the Lord, there is no security. Perhaps bolstered by faith or perhaps motivated by fear, she nevertheless stepped out, and provided the instrument for God to do a great work. Not only were she and her people saved, but their conditions were soon very much improved in the land. For her, it was indeed a very happy ending.

If it seems to you that I have played some kind of trick on you, that there was really but one Queen Esther the whole time, I say to you yes… and no. As God proclaims, when we are in Christ, we are all “new” creatures. The old ways, the old person, is gone. Yet true as that is, some of us insist on keeping the body up and around. 

Rather than choosing new paths, we remain stuck in the old. Where we should be bold, we are afraid. Where we should speak out, we remain silent. We walk as though carrying the old person with us each step of the way, because we never try the new path, the one that can only be found by stepping out in faith. 

We face a time in our nation when Christians overseas face brutal persecution, often death, in lands that our government supports, by religious zealots whom our government defends. We tolerate smaller, but increasing, oppression of ourselves in the states. We fear to stick out, to draw attention, to speak out and say “This is wrong!” We fail to act, most Christians to the point they don’t even vote, or if they do they teach themselves so little about the candidates that they are as likely to hurt their cause as help it. And, lest we forget, it isn’t our own cause we are hurting. Nor are we the only ones who will pay four our inaction when the time comes.

Which Queen Esther are you? Are you the one who will stay low, and avoid conflict at all cost? Or will you step out on faith, and make some noise knowing full well it may come back on you? Such decisions are never easy, and they never will be. If people of faith continue to avoid making them, however, they will soon find themselves with no power of decision at all.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Vs Interstellar

When ABC first announced that they would be making a TV show about the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I don’t think anyone was more excited than I was. I had seen all of the movies introducing the characters and thought most of them were great fun, particularly The Avengers. 

And up in my attic you’ll find, next to the cardboard boxes of old files and baby clothes, somewhere over a dozen boxes filled with comics. Mostly Marvel, mostly X-Men and Avengers related, spanning the seventies through the nineties. I was really wanting a good show. 

What I got was Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Maybe it’s just that I’m behind the times, but I was expecting a show about heroes. Not necessarily “super” heroes, though as I said, I grew up with the comics, so a little Hawkeye or Black Widow sure would have been welcome. No, I was expecting heroes in the good old-fashioned sense of people going out and doing the tough jobs, standing up for highest principles, and doing it all for the right reasons. 

It didn’t take the writers long to beat that out of me. 

When the show started out, it seemed that a lot of those elements were there. There was the team, going into danger, fighting to keep the people of America safe, being “the good guys.” But slowly, I came to realize that wasn’t really what the show was about at all. That was the appearance, the shell. It was like one of the Halloween costumes you can buy these days where you put on a set of green tights and it has foam inserts at places that make it appear as though you had huge muscles, or red plastic gauntlets with a light at the end that look like armor. It’s not a bad costume, but underneath there isn’t anything.

I became disillusioned with the big trends first. Here was a multi-billion dollar intelligence organization that, among other things, went out and located pieces of alien or unexplained technology. And what did it do with that technology? Did it study, investigate, learn, risk? Maybe sometimes. But what we got to see was it being shot into the sun, or locked away from prying eyes, possibly in the same warehouse as the Ark of the Covenant. 

There were things out there, someone had determined, that were too dangerous to handle. For anyone. So these shadowy forces made the decision for everyone: Lock down the studies. Block the research. Silence the questions. Knowledge was secondary, or tertiary, or unessential. What really mattered was keeping the people safe. By any means necessary.

This lack of trust that the government in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Universe doesn’t just relate to technology, of course. It permeates every aspect of the show. The leaders don’t trust the agents, which is understandable considering that they often aren’t trustworthy. When you pull in a young woman who spent her early adult life hacking into your classified systems, you really shouldn’t be surprised when she goes off the reservation and starts spying on you, or simply picks up and leaves.

The agents don’t trust the leaders, which is also understandable because they aren’t trustworthy. These are the men and women who are shutting them down, denying cover, support, necessary information. These are also the people who are deciding, in the background, how much of their own background they should know. 

That might be understandable in matters where a security or national interest is at stake, but there’s never the case. The deciding factor always seems to come down to how the agent will “feel” about the news? How much can they emotionally take? And so, through these supervisors, the government becomes the judge of how much we can know or understand, even about ourselves. 

Throw all of this together, and well... Let’s just say that I wasn’t too disappointed when Hydra crashed the organization. They are pure comic-book evil, but at least they have some ambition beyond hiding away all of the toys to keep the children from bumping their knees. They have goals, focus, and dedication. 

In the real world, the one outside of the Marvel Television universe, S.H.I.E.L.D., or what’s left of it, wouldn’t last long. Which takes us to the new movie, Interstellar.

I had read some mixed reviews about the film, and had started to become discouraged. But along with being a comic buff from way back, I am also a Sci-Fi movie buff, so I took a chance. 

There are definitely some things that could be improved on about the film. As I told my wife walking out of the theater, they could have dropped at least twenty minutes off the thing and never missed it. The techno-speak gets a little heavy from time to time, and I believe I handle techno-speak a little better than most. There are a few rabbit trails that the writers go down that don’t seem to add much. But underneath the clutter of time, and jargon, and perhaps a little too much “art,” there’s gold up there on the screen.

At the heart of it all lies the penultimate question for mankind: Will you strive to live, or merely survive? 

In an artificially desperate world, the future is bleak because of an evolving crop blight. One by one, it adapts to and destroys man’s major food sources, until only corn remains. Presumably, not just food crops but most other green plants are going, because the towns are prone to ever worsening dust storms as less remains to hold the soil. 

The government’s response to all of this, at least publicly, is to adapt to the changes. Farm the corn. Make more people farm the corn. Make people who hate farming farm the corn because that’s the only way mankind can survive, and nothing is more important than that. Until it is.

Known to a few is that the corn won’t resist the blight much longer, and that means the end of everyone. Or it would, if a strange agency had not found a way to help us out. A mysterious “They” place a wormhole in our solar system, allowing a desperate search for a new world colonize outside of our galaxy, and potentially a way to save many of those still alive on Earth. 

To survive, or to thrive? To live, or to exist? Those questions lie at the center of the movie. A good deal of tension is developed between the two philosophies. Much of that tension is lost unfortunately by drawing out the scenes too long, but the questions remain. As with most questions people ask about life and philosophy, the answers lie not in the future. They have already been solved, many times, in the past.

Man is Spirit, as well as flesh. That is a gift of his Creator. He, our Lord, has given us a part of His Divinity. Because of that, we cannot just “survive.” If we resolve to take that path, then we deny that part of ourselves that creates, that discovers, that seeks. The part that comforts and cares, as well. We deny our given Divinity, and in doing so become no more special than the ape, which shares so much of our DNA, or the weed, which lives and grows and spreads and is, by definition, unwelcome.

The penultimate question: To live, or merely survive?

The future of mankind rests on that question and how each of us answer as we go to work and school, as we parent our children, and eventually allow our children to parent us. It lies in the science that we accept, and the non-science that we reject, and the methods that separate the two. And it rests in the truth. Not the truth that we determine for ourselves, but the truth that transcends ourselves. That is where the future lies.

And the ultimate question? What about that, you may wonder? That’s one that we all must answer first, or the matter of living or survival means nothing. And the question is: Who gave you the will to ask?

The President Gets It Right, and Wrong, On Quarantines

As quick as I am to point out when I believe the current president to be wrong, I should be just as quick to point out when I believe that he is correct. So, when Mr. Obama says that placing a mandatory quarantine on healthcare workers returning from Ebola stricken nations is likely to reduce the number of volunteers, I believe him. 

This is simply an example of one of the few rules in economics that (almost) always is true: When you increase the cost of the something, you get less of it. When you reduce the cost, you get more of it. Or, more succinctly, incentives work. I wish that he would take this uncharacteristic show of common sense and apply it to other things such as the tax code, health care, business costs, etc., but this at least shows that he can get it right if he wants to. Of course, after correctly assessing the effect of quarantines on health care volunteers, he immediately goes back into “irrationality” mode.

In the case of a disease like Ebola, quarantine is not simply “an option.” It is the only option that has ever been effective. While treatment has been able to minimize the number of fatalities in the past, it has always been a waiting game. You wait until everyone possibly exposed to the disease has passed the danger period after destroying the contaminated materials. That’s the way it always has been, and until there is an effective vaccine or anti-viral, that is still the case.

There is a tendency among many to picture those who travel to foreign lands to care for the stricken as saints, as though any action taken from there on is above reproach. Both tendencies are false and foolish. Don’t get me wrong. I have great admiration for people who take such risks and provide that kind of aid, whether voluntarily or paid. But in the long run, they still have the same flaws and weaknesses as the rest of us. 

So, when they return from their exhausting mission, while they may promise to “self-quarantine,” they do not. They travel, interact, considering themselves (perhaps unconsciously) as either so wise that they know without benefit of time that they have not been exposed. In some cases, they may even feel entitled, that the service they have rendered gives them the right to place others at risk. And what was a single outbreak becomes another. And another.

This is what we have seen so far. It is foolish to panic at this point, or to advise panic. As a nation, however, we have been given more than enough cause for concern. The administration started late when it came to addressing the problem, as usual. Rather than emphasizing the safety of many, the chief executive is pushing hard for the privilege of the few. It is not a position that inspires confidence. The administration is rightly known for denying problems or failures that it finds embarrassing. If the matter worsened suddenly, I doubt the president could be relied upon to deliver prompt or accurate information. There is too much evidence to the contrary.

I’ve heard it said that returning volunteers should be treated like heroes, that they should come back to accolades and respect. I quite agree. And as soon as they go through an appropriate quarantine period, I would be proud to applaud each and every one of them. But let’s also remember: It was their decision to volunteer and to put themselves at risk, not ours. 

I think it safe to say that if an infected doctor or nurse manages to spread the virus into a highly populated area of the states, the accolades will disappear rather quickly. Saving lives overseas counts for little when it puts your son or daughter of father into a sick bed, wondering who will survive. All it would take is one "hero" acting a little too much the fool.

As we do respect these fine men and women, let’s protect them from that indignity. And in doing so, we will protect ourselves and our children, our friends and our neighbors. Sounds like “win-win” to me.